Goddess: Inside Madonna (54 page)

Pellerin, Jean-Claude, 224, 227, 230–31, 232–34, 236, 239–42

Penn, Chris, 276, 281

Penn, Leo, 276–77, 290, 292

Penn, Sean, xix, xxiv, 9, 16, 24, 76, 91, 129, 136, 137, 197, 261, 276–82, 286–87, 288, 290–310, 317, 325–27, 328–32, 353–54, 356, 371, 372, 392, 398, 401, 402, 403

Perkins, Elizabeth, 319

Perón, Eva, xx–xxii, xxv–xxvi, 4–9, 19, 21–30, 31–41, 44, 46–47, 87–90, 104–105, 167, 173, 191, 223–24, 345–49, 358, 372, 395, 403

Perón, Juan, 3, 8, 22, 24, 25, 31, 89–90, 105, 167, 345, 346

Perry, Frank, 110

Peters, Jon, 274, 314

Pettibone, Shep, 25

Pfeiffer, Michelle, 354

Piazzolla, Astor, xxi

Pillsbury, Sarah, 288

Pitt, Brad, 387, 399

Plath, Sylvia, xviii–xix

Porter, Cole, 318

Presley, Elvis, 55, 153

Prince, 90, 220, 316

Pryce, Jonathan, 3, 89

Przygocki family, 63

Puckett, Garry, 250

Pugni, Walter, 70

Quinn, Aidan, 110, 280

Quinquela, Benito, 28

R., Charlotte, 383

Rabe, David, 309–10

Redgrave, Lynn, 361

Reed, John, 334

Reynolds, Zachary Smith, 360

Rice, Tim, 4, 5, 6–9, 17, 224, 336, 354

Rich, Frank, 324

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 184

Ritchie, Guy, xxv, 53, 121, 129, 137, 142, 316–17, 345, 357–58, 371–79, 380–400, 401–404, 406, 407, 409

Ritchie, John, 373, 385–86, 396, 399–400, 402

Ritchie, Rocco John, xxv, 53, 357–58, 385, 386–89, 390, 391, 394–400, 407

Ritchie, Shireen, 396, 400

Ritchie, Stewart “Jack,” 373, 392

Ritchie, Tabitha, 373, 388

Rivadera, Marta, 41

Rivera, Diego, xii, 329–30

Rodenburg, Patsy, 375

Rodgers, Nile, 103, 268, 291–92

Rodman, Dennis, 354

Rollins, Henry, 18

Romano, Kitty, 215–16

Rosenberg, Liz, 13, 15, 363, 365

Rosenblatt, Michael, 266–67, 283, 284

Rosenthal, Richard, 279

Ross, Diana, 268

Ross, Herb, 5

Rostovo, Mira, 340

Runyon, Damon, 333

Rupp, Carol, 80

Russell, Ken, 5, 223–24

Ryan, Eileen, 276–77, 290, 292, 332

Sagan, Françoise, 184

Salinger, J. D., 184

Sanford, Midge, 288

Savignano, Anthony, 309

Sawyer, Forrest, 219

Schatz, Larry, 382

Scher, John, 315

Schindler, Paul, 259

Schlesinger, John, 96–98, 361–62

Schreiber, Martin, 208–209

Scorsese, Martin, 359

Seed, Father Benedict, 396

Seidelman, Susan, 110, 288–89

Selleck, Tom, 302

Sewell, Rufus, 18

Sexton, Anne, xviii

Sheen, Charlie, 276–77, 294

Sheen, Martin, 276–77, 294

Sherman, Bobby, 250

Sholder, Jack, 358

Siebert, Father Gary, 156–58, 161

Siegel, Bugsy, 9, 260

Silver, Ron, 319, 323

Simon, John, 323

Simon, Paul, 214, 294

Sinatra, Frank, 184

Singh, Talwin, 366

Smith, Liz, 316, 350

Sondheim, Stephen, 155, 333–34

Spin, 202

Springsteen, Bruce, 277

Springsteen, Pam, 277–78, 279

Stallone, Sylvester, 325, 382

Stamos, Consuela, 39–40

Stanton, Harry Dean, 292

Steichen, Edward, 162

Stein, Gertrude, 205, 235

Stein, Seymour, 187, 267, 283–84

Steinberg, Ed, 214

Sternberg, Alicia, 33

Stewart, Marlene, 294

Stewart, Martha, 115–16

Stigwood, Robert, 6, 306, 334, 335

Sting, 101, 103, 281, 371, 374, 384, 394, 396, 399, 400

Stone, Bill, 208

Stone, Oliver, 5, 318, 335–36, 354

Stone, Sharon, 340

Strecker, Tania, 372, 374, 377

Streep, Meryl, 354

Streisand, Barbra, 223, 237, 273, 274, 288

Styler, Trudie, 371–72, 374, 375, 377, 384, 394, 396, 397, 399, 400, 403

Suanton, Nina Dajet, 80

Sullivan, Timothy, 54–55

Sylbert, Richard, 337

Tarantino, Quentin, 371

Thatcher, Margaret, 204

Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 160

Townsend, Cal, 166

Toy, Terence, 296

Travilla, Bill, 212

Trenet, Pierre, 235

Trojan, Jerry and Grace, 62–63

Tubiana, Claude Delay, 95–96

Unger, Dan, 292

Vajna, Andy, 6–7

Van Lieu, Jean, 224, 226–27, 230–31, 234, 236, 239–42, 243

Van Lieu, Muriel, 226–31, 234, 238–40, 241–42, 243

Varda, Agnès, 311

Vaughan, Sarah, 184

Vaughn, Mathew, 371, 395, 397, 399

Vaughn, Robert, 371

Versace, Donatella, 395, 397, 399

Versace, Gianni, 8

Vil, Betty, 80

Vincent, Jan Michael, 329

Vitucci, Amelia, 75

Vodlers, Ron, 60

Vonnegut, Kurt, 184

von Sternberg, Josef, 301

Walken, Christopher, 281, 294

Walker, Lenore, 331

Wallace, Robert, 381

Ward, Tony, 260–61, 326, 354

Warhol, Andy, 196, 202, 213–17, 283, 294

Weaver, Sigourney, 137, 325

Webber, Andrew Lloyd, 4, 5, 6–7, 8, 318, 334–35, 336, 354

Webster, Stephen, 398

Weiss, Lauren, 330

West, Mae, 115

West, Stanley T., 16–17

Whalen, Frank, 60

White, E. B., 195

White, Kitty, 80

Whitehouse, Mary, 155

Wilde, Oscar, 158–59

Williams, Joe, 184

Williams, Vanessa, 211

Willis, Bruce, 311

Willocks, Tim, 18

Winston, Ronald, 398

Wiseman, Joseph, 182

Wolcott, David, 307–308

Wolff, Art, 277

Wolinski, David, 308

Wonder, Stevie, 168

X., Gene, 383

Yokel, Dindy, 382

Young, Tracy, 399

Youngman, Henny, 253

Zeffirelli, Franco, 5

Zeta-Jones, Catherine, 401

Ziliac, A. L., 80

Zuffante, Vinnie, 309

I
n 1993 a French magazine in Paris asked me to do an article about Madonna in the aftermath of her book,
Sex
, and her album
Erotica
, both of which came out in the fall of 1992. My interest in her had been limited to reading the occasional magazine piece or listening to the random song on the car radio. As I began looking for an original angle to my story, I learned that Madonna had an impressive twentieth-century art collection that included several important paintings by Tamara de Lempicka and Frida Kahlo. Only when I saw photographs of those particular works did I find myself intrigued by Madonna.

What fascinated me about her art collection was that several of the paintings by de Lempicka and Kahlo were so strikingly similar to certain photographs that had been taken of the star during different phases of her career that she might almost have modeled for the artists. Not only did Madonna embody those images painted on canvas decades before—either in her various bondage poses or when she flirted with lesbianism—but the paintings recalled several of the images Madonna had adopted during her rise to fame. De Lempicka works, for instance, depict a woman who is liberated well before her time. In one autobiographical canvas, de Lempicka, wearing an art-deco racing helmet, is driving a sports car, her boyish allure similar to that of Madonna who poses with a whip in her video “Erotica.” In another work entitled
Printemps
, de Lempicka is locked in an embrace with another woman, not unlike Madonna and a girlfriend seen kissing in Madonna’s book,
Sex
. In a work by Frida Kahlo that hangs in Madonna’s New York apartment, the artist has painted herself wearing a metal corset with protruding nails that is meant to support her damaged spine. Similarly, Madonna poses in a Jean-Paul Gaultier corset made of black rubber trimmed in lace.

Madonna and Frida Kahlo have other similarities in addition to the singer’s ability to imitate some of Kahlo’s poses on her canvases. Both women attack their respective artistic media in very literal ways. To convey sadness, the artist paints herself crying; to show physical suffering, she paints herself bleeding; and to portray death, she paints corpses. Much like Madonna, who has little sense of metaphor in her work and whose music and lyrics depict specific incidents in her life, Kahlo’s paintings are also autobiographical. Kahlo’s art graphically tells the story of her struggle with childhood polio as well as her unhappy marriage to the celebrated artist Diego Rivera, who constantly deceived her. Madonna’s videos graphically project her erotic feelings about Christ or her obsession about death. Madonna, like Frida Kahlo, is one of the few artists who has managed to incorporate self-pity and her own sad memories into her work so cleverly that the public interprets it as being privy to her private life.

The question that occurred to me was whether Madonna’s choice of art was indicative of a pattern. Was her taste in literature, music, and film dependent on her ability to identify with or to transform herself into the character or subject found in certain creative works of those whom she admired? And if so, how big a role did her lack of cultural objectivity have in her own success?

Her conflicts with Catholicism have repeatedly appeared in her songs, since the story she tells is always faintly or blatantly autobiographical. In her videos, the plot seems to reflect an incident in her life, while in her stage shows she has often invested in a borrowed identity from a historical figure or movie star. After all that she has accomplished and despite her attempts to present herself as a sexually liberated woman with a formidable intellect, the melancholy memories of her difficult childhood remain a very present and emotional aspect of her personality. To overcome some of the trauma she endured as a child, she has used illusion to guarantee her own psychic survival and sheer guts to claw her way to the top. An autodidact, she is the ideal audience for self-help books, alternative medicine, ancient mystical teachings, and New Age philosophy. Twenty-two years after she left her hometown of Bay City, Michigan, Madonna remains steeped in her middle-class, Middle American background. Armed with new props and toys, she is a curious combination of the spiritually healed twenty-first-century feminist and the tormented Catholic girl of the 1950s, yet another variation of her basic Madonna/Whore complex.

For more than a century, it has been fashionable to define the route to success in the entertainment business as a combination of ambition, talent, opportunity, and dreams. For Madonna, that definition needs to be rewritten. Though she is indeed ambitious, talented, and has certainly seized every opportunity presented to her, she has never been a dreamer. Rather than dreams, Madonna has goals. Pragmatic, demanding, disciplined, and controlling, she perceives the world of make-believe through her own subjective vision much as she views the works of others based on the similarities to her own life. And yet, despite her genius for changing her image, transforming old ideas and used concepts to fit her own style, Madonna has never mastered the art of fantasy. Her originality is in her ability to convince her fans that the story she tells is autobiographical. By making herself accessible to her public, she enables them to identify with the words she sings or lyrics she writes and encourages them to follow her example—that if she has survived, so can they. There are staunch Madonna fans who believe that her music is indicative of her growth, that it speaks to several generations of both genders and all sexual persuasions. They are convinced that Madonna’s music is a barometer of the changing times, from the 1980s to the present, and that her success is in her range of composition, her ability to move from style to style without losing her audience.

From 1984, when she first appeared on the music scene with
Madonna, The First Album
, a collection of innocent popular songs, lighthearted lyrics repeated over an endlessly repeating beat, until today, seventeen years later, when
Music
appeared, a combination of French electronica, influenced by such groups as Air and Daft Punk, and more soulful folk songs, she has proven that she can outlast and outsell the new wave of young performers. Madonna has said that when she started out there was more personal expression in pop music, that unlike today, it reflected less of an organic nature of the business. More than expression, Madonna relies on self-expression and her ability to understand the unspoken thoughts and desires of her fans. Throughout her music career, Madonna’s lyrics have not only matched her mood, looks, and style, they have also allowed her public to become part of the new trends and tastes in popular songs by making sure they could identify with the words even more than the tunes. It was, therefore, no coincidence that she decided to collaborate with Mirwais Ahmadzai, a thirty-nine-year-old Frenchman of North African descent, who has tremendous experience in the world of disco-punk. Mirwais, who produced
Music
, is an unconventional musician who has managed to combine and save the folk-pop realm from the late 1970s with the drum and bass of the new wave of electronic music. With Madonna, Mirwais found that he had created a new form of electronic music. “The big problem for instrumental electronic music,” Mirwais explains, “is that you could do great music, but if you want to transfer complex feelings, sometimes with three words you can communicate more than with three hours of electronica. I think in electronic music we have arrived at this stage where a lot of people like songs—we are not frightened by the song. Ten years ago, a lot of people that love rock or pop music wouldn’t listen to an electronic song; they’d think it’s awful or horrible. Today, it’s everywhere in the culture, and a lot of people are ready to listen to this music. The problem now is the instrumental format is too constraining, too small. I wanted to communicate more complex feeling.” By collaborating with Madonna, Mirwais found the perfect partner, a singer whose voice would not overpower the instrumental and whose lyrics were vast in their emotional spectrum, yet contained in their complexity and length of phrase.